


Fall into the sky

by Clocketpatch



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Life After the Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 16:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clocketpatch/pseuds/Clocketpatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darkness falls around Barbara, dawn rises, rain caresses the turf, and she thinks of the man who had seen all the wonders of the cosmos and then whispered in her ear that she, a drab middle-aged history teacher, was the most brilliant star in the sky. [warning, character death]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall into the sky

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, because I'm leaving the country in four days and wanted to get this posted before hand. I read it over with a fine toothed comb at least eight times; many appologies if anything glaring sneaked through.

This started off as a writing exercise: write a story about an old woman remembering a past event. The story must contain at least three shifts between past and present tense.  
At first it wasn't about Barbara, or anything DW, but, as things went on, it became clear that this piece was destined for ficiness.  
To the moderators, I attempted to post this story two days ago but it was not validated. I do not know if this was because of a technical problem, a content problem, or because I edited the story several times after posting. I am sincerely sorry if, by deleting and re-posting, I am breaking any site rules.  


* * *

 

The sky darkens to dusk, another sunset, another day. The stars are being lit like so many candles, and Barbara Chesterton idly wonders who holds the match; whose duty is it to spin across the heavens, rolling with the turn of the earth, to make sure all those little flames remain brightly burning? Who trims the wicks and tends the wax? She shakes her head, for she knows this is only a flight of fancy. She knows that the stars remain lit even during the day, that they are not candles but gas, that the sky is not a flat tablecloth but a boundless voyage of empty and exaltation. She knows. But —

She is a history teacher. She knows science, but her vocation is and always has been to tell stories. Most often the stories of others: dry old dates and kings and battles that come alive in her mind's eye. To her, the history she has witnessed and the history she has never seen, but knows only through age-blurred black on white texts, to her, both are real. But —

She wants more than facts and less than fancy. She is upset with science. She wants her own story, because she has seen history in action, has seen the vastness between stars, the hugeness of everything. Uncrushable good and unbelievable evil. A seed sends out shoots, unfurls, buds, flowers. Fails. All that in the size of a pebble, and so many pebbles in the sky. It's like skipping stones on a pond. Impossible, but there it is, and who knows what's lurking beneath the surface? It is always more and less frightening than you expect down there and out there in the black where you cannot breathe.

She is old. Few wrinkles, but her hair is now pristine white. Her knees creak and complain at the uneven, dewy ground that is getting chill now with evening.

She looks at the cold stone in front of her and the cruel lines etched there. Night and day do not affect it. It is not lit and snuffed with the morning only to be reborn, same as eternity, the next night. That star is gone forever. It will not shine or laugh again.

Barbara is old, but she feels like she will never understand.

  
*

Barbara, twenty-three years old and fresh into the profession: she was excited and nervous and giddy. She loved her students — well, usually, there were days when she was pressed. She loved her subject. She loved her classroom and the way it smelled like pencil shavings and academia, but not the stuffy academia of teacher's college. It smelled like youth.

The only blister on her happiness was, well, _him_.

He watched her, always. She blushed, always, and found an excuse to leave the room. It drove her mad until, eventually, he got over his infatuation and she got over her embarrassment. Then they were able to have brief, professional chats in the lunchroom about students and teaching methods and the such. They were co-workers not friends.

That lasted for over a decade.

Though, things disintegrated near the end to the point where, sometimes, he would tell a joke and she would laugh, or they would talk about things wholly unrelated to teaching: like music, or the weather. They had dinner together once, but that turned out awkward and not just because she still lived with her parents.

*

The day birds go to rest and the night birds begin their subdued, drawn-out calls. The breeze is faint. A kissing breeze, ruffling leaves and feathers with promises of rain.

Barbara does not leave flowers on his grave. She is a strong person, or pretends to be, and it has been years since she knelt in this place. She has moved on, mostly, and does not cry, but it is not rain that falls to water the grass.

She is happy though, paradoxically. She is happy, and sad, and confused, and very, very unsure.

She knows that what is going to happen has already happened somewhere, and what has been is still going on somewhen else. She knows that whatever will be, will be. She does not pretend to understand time or fate, especially when she knows that, though things are fixed, they are also in flux.

Perhaps, this is not the ending she imagined, but she would not change it — not one line — and, besides, she knows that every ending is only a transition. A star might die. It might explode, or implode, or burn away to a husk, but the universe deplores a vacuum and something new will always be waiting, better or worse, to take that star's place.

*

They were both sterile, and it came as no surprise when he was diagnosed with cancer. They'd been ready for it, dreading it, but also accepting it. She found her own lump three months later.

What followed was a hell of hospitals and chemicals, discomforts and indignities. She held his hand as he faded, pretending that she was fine. They spoke freely of their adventures to family and friends for the first time, not caring if they weren't believed or were thought mad. It didn't matter anymore and Barbara, the history teacher, knew that history needed to be passed on.

She wrote a book.

She whispered memories to her husband and comforted him as they tried to convince each other that _it had been worth it_. It might not have been a planned journey, and the aftershocks were dire, but they had seen so much, done so much…

And they had found each other. Wedding bands and all, if only for a little while.

Their slow, indeterminable courtship at Coal Hill School might have gone on for decades more with no progress if they hadn't decided to be spontaneous and daring that one night. If the pair of them hadn't, accidentally, illegally, followed a student home and wandered into the sky.

*

"I still haven't found a publisher for that dratted book," Barbara says to the grave. "I suppose it's my own fault for trying to sell it as non-fiction." She has been here for hours now. By the far horizon the stars' light is distorted by a hazy bend of cloud.

"And John is doing very well for himself. I haven't told him yet — but, I knew you would understand."

She coughs, not for the first time this night. She is cold and she tugs her jacket tighter around her narrow shoulders. She shouldn't be here, sitting alone outside on this cold, damp night, not at her age, not in her condition, and not when she has a warm house and a family which is probably going frantic wondering where she is. She has been known to disappear into the ether before, but that's not where she's going now.

She feels ancient at sixty-three. It has been forty years since she first met the man lying beneath her, and twenty since she lost him. She is not here to say goodbye.

*

"I came as soon as I heard. Barbara, Ian, I will try to help you."

He wasn't anything like the other doctors.

Doctor Smith called them by their first names. He wore a cheap suit and too much cologne. His hair and his shirt were always rumpled. He was, apparently, some kind of specialist, yet he seemed absurdly young. Barbara didn't question any of these things, only observed them wearily, and dared to hope. He reminded her of someone, but she could never place the connection. She supposed that, maybe, they had sat next to each other on a bus once, a long time ago, but it ran deeper:

She trusted him.

He did many tests and odd procedures though, thankfully after all she and her husband had endured, none were invasive. He chatted all the time, but there was a constant look in his eyes: dogged and tired and sad. The look of a man who had seen too much death and Barbara, who had dared to hope, felt that hope fail.

Doctors saw much death and pain, yes, but this one looked as if he excepted it.

Still, he gave better pain killers than of their previous physicians and he didn't make snide comments when he caught them discussing their past adventures. Sometimes he would sit and listen patiently, itching back and forth like a child waiting for dessert, enthralled, but always sad in the eyes.

He had a young assistant, a doctor-in-training, who was quick, intelligent, and understanding. Barbara always smiled at her.

"The world is changing," she said to Ian, "We've been so far, but I wish we could stay a few more years to see where our own time leads, our own story. It seems, just as the world is starting to sort itself out, we're heading out of it."

"We have our own story," he said, softly, and then squeezed her hand because he didn't have the strength to say more, but she understood.

The day when Dr. Smith, who could natter the ear off a brass monkey, was still and silent, Barbara knew.

"I'm sorry," he said after a long gloom, "if I had been a bit quicker, just few weeks sooner, I'm so, so sorry."

"It's not your fault," said Barbara, trying to smile and not feeling it, "You saved me at least, and I can have children now. I'm not old. I might still marry again."

She didn't want to. She wanted to curl up in a ball. She wanted to die and join the man who had been the love of her life. The man who had been brave, and caring, and wise. The man who had seen all the wonders of the cosmos and then whispered in her ear that she, a drab middle-aged history teacher, was the most brilliant star in the sky.

"But it is my fault," Doctor Smith said, all of the pain in his deep brown eyes pressing forward. Barbara felt for him, and thought it tragic that a person with such a sympathetic soul had ended up in such a hard profession, and more tragic still that he was good at it. She wished she could give him confidence, but she knew from years of teaching that such gifts could be sowed and nurtured over years, but not given, not in gift wrap, not with thanks yous or cards.

"It is not," she said firmly, "and I don't blame the person whose fault it is. Whatever will be, will be. Thank you for saving my life."

He smiled slightly. Nodded, and left.

She never saw him again, but, when she remarried and had a child, she thought of him. She tried to send a note, but the hospital had no record of Dr. Smith or his young assistant. Barbara named her son John Ian Ralph (Ralph being her new husband's last name, which, since the world was changing, she had declined to take as her own surname, and, because, though she had moved on, she couldn't quite let go). At night she dreamed of boxes that were bigger on the inside, of stars, and impossible dreams. By day she raised her son, loved her husband, taught history, and lived. She was happy.

And life was bittersweet.

And life was good.

*

Barbara gets up when the rain comes. Her arthritis protests and she remembers the Doctor, his cane, and his careful step. The way he grabbed his suspenders and hmmmed. His moods, his rashness, his… humanity. She does not resent the gift and the curse he gave her.

She drives home, making a special detour past an office building that was once a junkyard. It is time for her to tell her family the diagnosis. This time she doubts Dr. Smith will be around to save her. She knows what to expect.

She is not afraid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

end

* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=21453>


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